


Rebuke

by BrosleCub12



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Gen, Grief, John is a Mess, Missing Scene, Protective Lestrade, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:38:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrosleCub12/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: 'You're lucky I don't charge you.'(Missing scene from The Lying Detective).





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this both hurt like hell to write but was also enormously satisfying - rather like the whole of the episode itself, if I'm honest. This has been unbeta'ed, so all mistakes are mine. Warnings for swearing, spoilers and some descriptions of violence (figured I'd use that tag just in case).
> 
> As per, I don't own Sherlock.

‘You’re lucky I don’t charge you with GBH,’ Lestrade mutters and John looks up from his knuckles (bruised and blooded; Sherlock’s blood. His foot still bears muscle memory of the kicks he shoved into his side; how many kicks – one, two, three? More, maybe? Feels like more; felt like more).

‘What?’

Lestrade glances his way; something in his face, rugged, older (like _all_ of them are growing older) tightens, a sigh turning into a huff as he sits down again with a very irritated heaviness.

‘Mary jumped in front of the bullet,’ he leans forward and practically growls the words at John, his words full of knowing exasperation. ‘Sherlock had nothing to do with it; the gun was on him, the bullet was for him and Mary took it.’

John opens his mouth, fast and furious, feeling it rise up, the rage he thought he had expelled, but Lestrade’s hand comes down, a smack on the table. _Shut up._

‘I was _there,’_ he snarls. ‘So were about half a dozen other people and we saw what happened. We all saw it.’

He kicks the chair back, apparently unable to sit still and stands again; glares down at John with open distaste, hands on hips as though he’s addressing a true reprobate.

‘He hasn’t left his flat in _weeks,_ you know?’ he challenges, finally, when it becomes clear that John can’t think of anything to say. ‘He hasn’t taken a single case. Do you _know_ what that means? He blames himself, John, maybe even more than you do.’

John shows his teeth; leans forward. ‘Mary died.’

‘Yeah,’ Lestrade shows his own teeth in return; he really is a bloody Dad, isn’t he? ‘She _died_ , John, because someone else pulled the trigger. And now Sherlock – _Sherlock_ could have died because of what you did. I know you had to restrain him, but for _fuck’s sake!’_

His arm swings out and the chair he was sitting on suddenly goes over; clatters to the floor under his hands and John watches it, the noise rattling in his head, then turns slowly back to Lestrade, who is breathing through his nose, whose shoulders are rising and falling as he presses a hand to his mouth.

‘Greg?’ John asks, finally, slowly, cautiously and the man leans heavily on the interrogation table as though it’s suddenly the only thing holding him up.

‘He was your friend, once.’ The detective’s voice is a low echo in the room. ‘And I swear there was a time when I thought you’d do _anything_ for him, you were that close. What the fuck is wrong with you?’

‘Oh. I don’t know.’ John pulls himself upright as well; refuses to admit that his legs are trembling and that he’s leaning on the table with one hand for support (He’s never seen Greg like this; never, not towards _him_ at the very least). ‘Maybe just becoming a widowed parent of a six-month-old baby kind of does that to you, you know?’

He hopes for something; acknowledgement of his grief, the fact that he’s lost his wife, that Rosie has lost her mother – but all he gets is an ill-humoured huff before Lestrade turns away, takes a breath, as though John suddenly isn’t worth looking at.

‘I’m sorry you’re hurting,’ his voice is gravelled; sad, suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, John. I get what it’s like. I’ve seen this before,’ he adds, raising his voice as John gives a scoff at his words. ‘But blaming Sherlock is not going to get you anywhere.’

 _No, but it makes me feel better,_ John thinks viciously, as he glances away from Lestrade’s raging stare –

Mary is standing in a corner of the room, staring at him, large eyes glinting in half-light. She shakes her head. Once. Twice.

John blinks back, hard.

‘…really want your daughter having a father who goes around beating up her godfather?’ Lestrade’s voice floats through and Mary is gone and John is once more dragged back into the room.

‘I won’t charge you this time, John,’ Lestrade tells him. ‘I’ll put it under defence of another individual, but you’re very, _very_ lucky I’m not taking this any higher. You’ve got Rosie to think of, so you get off with a warning.’

Rosie. John thinks of her at home, with Mike Stanford and his wife (Mike, who always seems to be there just when you need him; who had been unable to make the wedding or in fact the christening but, with two daughters of his own, was happy enough to take on Rosie for a day or so to give John and Molly a break. John really doesn’t know what to make of this strange arrangement; maybe it’s him taking Mike for granted). Rosie doesn’t know what he’s done to Sherlock – the man whom John named as her godfather, who tolerated her throwing rattles at him, who called her ‘Watson’; a unique nickname he had never used before, certainly not on John and Mary. Who smiled at her faintly when he thought no-one was looking and spoke in a voice just a little unlike his own – gentler. Nicer.

(Sherlock’s face, brutally bloodied, his eyes, wide and always searching, now sad. Resigned, rather than pleading, as he looked up at John; the final proof as John pushed the words past the lump in his throat. _Yes you did. It’s your fault. It’s got to be your fault. You said it and you’re never wrong, about sodding anything, are you, so it’s got to be you)._

She doesn’t know about the woman on the bus, either. Or the flower. She doesn’t know about any of it and he’s not sure he ever wants her to. He doesn’t know if Sherlock knows; maybe he does.

‘Thankyou,’ he manages the word, mechanical though it is; he’s lucky he’s on such good terms with such a high-ranking member of the police, really, he reflects glumly. Police favouritism at its finest; well. It’ll do John just fine, if it means returning to Rosie.

‘Listen up, though,’ Lestrade adds and John turns, resigned to a lecture at least. He supposes Lestrade wouldn’t be doing his job right if he didn’t.

(It had taken two people, two nurses, two faceless strangers, to drag him off Sherlock, to pull him away. Once it had been him and Sherlock doing the restraining; this time it was him, glaring down at the barely-struggling body on the floor, his blood puddling beneath.

 _No, it’s okay,_ he had panted, breathless and pained and groaning, only raising his head to meet John’s eye.

 _It’s not,_ John had wanted to roar, _none of this is okay,_ but he had said something else instead).

‘If you’re not going to talk to Sherlock again,’ Lestrade steps close and puts a finger up, much more inspector detective than he’s ever been. ‘You stay away. D’you hear me, John? You do _anything_ like this again, I _will_ arrest you and I _will_ charge you. I don’t want to do it for Rosie’s sake,’ he adds as John lets a dry, angry laugh loose; Lestrade knew Sherlock before he did, after all, bloody typical, ‘but I will if it means keeping Sherlock safe.’

‘From me?’ John asks, offended, before he can stop himself and Lestrade just looks at him and John opens his mouth, wants to say something – _should_ say something; _I’m not, I’ve never…I wouldn’t_ because no. John wouldn’t. Not like _that._

 _Life is complicated with Sherlock,_ he wants to declare, to argue – and it sounds too much like an excuse, even in his head and he closes his mouth.

(He knows that Mary is rolling her eyes).

… He’ll go home. He’ll go to Rosie and he won’t text anyone; he’ll focus on being a father now, a father and a doctor to different people. A different life. He doesn’t want to lose Rosie after losing everything else.

He nods once and Lestrade gives him a last, warning look – _you got that?_ – and then a single, firm nod oif his own towards the door. It’s a dismissal that feels too much like a _get the hell out_ and John experiences the rather numb thought that maybe this will be the last time he and Lestrade ever talk.

(The last time he had spoken to John like this, it had been the night Sherlock was falsely accused of kidnap and arrested, a lifetime ago, right before he jumped. And it had been the other way around, then; John trying to defend Sherlock, from Lestrade.

Now, everyone _but_ him defends Sherlock. Molly helps him, but rarely talks to him, gives him a telling, cold shoulder even as she coos to Rosie, feeds her, nurses her. Mrs Hudson has apparently gone off the rails. And _Greg_ now, as well).

He turns to leave; a question pauses him, or maybe it’s Mary, lingering, her eyes heavy on his back, a silent siren.

‘What happened?’ he turns to ask Lestrade. ‘The night… what happened to Sherlock, after they took Mary away?’

Lestrade looks at him for a long moment. John stays his gaze. He needs to know. (Wants to know).

‘Mycroft took him home,’ Lestrade replies, eventually, short and clipped. John nods, once. He had left with Mary, left the aquarium with her body and had let his knees collapse under him outside on the pavement as she was taken away in the ambulance.

 _You made a vow,_ had been the last thing he had hissed at the man for weeks and Sherlock had stepped back and away, John feeling a vicious satisfaction at the expression on his face, the one he had put there because _everything_ hurt and now Sherlock hurt too. And then he had been at home, a house full of empty corners and Rosie’s cries and only himself to tend to her.

‘That’s good,’ he says, now. Because it is, really. That _is_ good.

‘Well, I’m just glad that _Mycroft_ hasn’t taken any action,’ Lestrade scowls. ‘You know what he’s like. I thought for sure he was going to hoist you off to the Tower of London once he found out.

‘…Yeah,’ John swallows; that hadn’t occurred to him, at all and with the realisation comes an uneasy curiousity. This was the man who kidnapped him within twenty-four hours of his and Sherlock’s first meeting. And Mycroft probably does know – he’s got the whole city under his ever-watchful eye. There’s no way he couldn’t.

Lestrade rubs his neck, regards him. ‘Maybe one day you’ll be able to speak to Sherlock _without_ punching him, yeah?’ There’s a lively anger still present, a clear protectiveness beneath his words; _definitely_ on Sherlock’s side, then and John bites his lip, looks to the floor.

‘Maybe,’ he agrees and then he walks away.  

*

He goes to the hospital to see Sherlock because he hit him badly, he hit him hard and he does need to know – he does _need_ to know – that he’s definitely okay.

He stands at the end of the bed, inspects Sherlock; thinner than ever, lank hair that clearly hasn’t been washed in days and a face that’s sweating as well as bloodied. Dead to the world; or maybe dead to John. Maybe pretending to be asleep while John’s here? John doesn’t ask; can’t seem to find the right words. Can’t talk; not now, at least. He’s said everything – done everything – already.

He casts a look over the IV, the machines. Heart-rate; steady. Saline on standby, to help heal him (heal the wounds that John plummeted down on him). He’ll recover. He should do.

_It’s okay. Let him do what he wants._

‘You didn’t fight back,’ he says aloud, suddenly, gazing down at him. ‘You _always_ fight back.’

Sherlock doesn’t stir; or move. No sign of wakefulness, not even his eyes moving beneath the sockets as a clue that he’s listening. _It would be just like him to fake it so he could hear something nice,_ John thinks and then blinks at how spiteful that particular thought is. _He’s_ the one who put Sherlock in here, after all.

He put Sherlock in here.

 _Stay away._ Lestrade’s voice is warning, dangerous, even in his head and he clears his throat, nods to himself and takes one last long look at Sherlock on the bed before he looks at his watch, makes a quick calculation.

There’s enough time, he decides, if he’s quick about it and he dashes out of the room and through the hospital, towards the car. He needs to find his cane.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know that John and Sherlock eventually got things sorted out, but I found a golden opportunity in that interview-room scene, so decided to use it. Writing John in this state of mind was tricky and to be honest I've had a lot less love for him since Series 3, but I tried to make it human and fair-minded; I'd be happy for any constructive criticism.


End file.
